if there is to much pollution how will we stop it to protect wildlife and marine animals.

Question: if there is to much pollution how will we stop it to protect wildlife and marine animals.
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Asked by Atom Squad to Lauren on 15 Mar 2016.
- Lauren Laing answered on 15 Mar 2016:
  
  Great Question!
  
  For pollutants like micro plastics we may need to introduce bans to prevent companies from including these in their products. Here is an examples of a campaign to stop companies from using certain plastics in their products: http://www.beatthemicrobead.org/en/industry
  
  Scientists are constantly developing new kinds of plastics which are biodegradable, and ways in which we can reuse and break down plastics. The common mealworm has been shown to safely biodegrade various types of plastic, bacteria have also been discovered that are able to digest polyethylene! I think as manufacturing and recycling technologies improve we will be able to manage our plastic wastes better, I don’t think we have a choice but to improve.
  
  But the problem still lies with the plastic already out there in the oceans, rivers and soils and in some cases can take anything in the region of 450 – 1000 years to completely degrade. Another thing to remember, is as one plastic bottle floats in the ocean, it is gradually damaged by UV light, and eventually one plastics bottle can become thousands of micro plastic pieces. Small plastics can be ingested by organisms and cause them harm, possibly making it harder from small organisms to work out what is food and what is plastic! Larger plastics are found lodged in the stomachs of ocean mammals and sharks. Plastics have been found at many levels of the food chain, from tiny sardines to big cod! Chemicals leeched from plastics have been shown to negatively affect fish, examples include Bisphenol A (BPA), which has been shown to impact on reproduction in fish.
  
  In this case, we may need to develop tools to remove plastics from the ocean. There are some technologies, such as the Ocean Cleanup Array, this is believed to be able to remove 7,250,000 tons of plastic waste currently polluting waters around the globe! This was designed by a 19 year old Dutch student! Here is the product:
  
  Also, have you seen this TED talk about how the oceans could possibly clean themselves!!

Question: if there is to much pollution how will we stop it to protect wildlife and marine animals.

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